The magnificent decoration of the Villa Poggio Imperiale in Florence long made it one of the city’s most important attractions. When it ceased to serve as an aristocratic residence in the nineteenth century, the villa and its history gradually began to sink into oblivion. This is equally true of Archduchess Maria Maddalen of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, the originator of the commission toredesign the villa at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Researchers have long neglected this historical figure because her pious religiosity did not appear to fit in with the image of the Medici as seemingly enlightened Renaissance rulers. Gaetano Pieraccini, one of the most influential biographers of the family, described her as a religious zealot, egoistical, and lacking in intellect and culture, and this led her to be ignored both as a patron and politician. The shift in the historical assessment of the Catholic Reform and research into women’s participation in it, have led to an entirely new perspective upon the biography of Maria Maddalena. It was precisely her religiousness that proved to be the key to understanding the function and decoration of Poggio Imperiale as an impressive setting for court activity, where, in keeping with a modern understanding, secular and sacred as well as private and public spheres constantly informed one another.